Races

Eight of the nine races in Ashes of Creation.

Py'rai themed divine gateway.

Ashes of Creation offers nine playable races.

• Aela Humans (Kaelar and Vaelune).
• Pyrian Elves (Empyrean and Py'Rai).
• Kaivek Orcs (Ren'Kai and Vek).
• Dünzenkell Dwarves (Dünir and Niküa).
• Tul'nar.

Racial abilities

Character benefits in Ashes of Creation are tied to that character's background rather than their race.

We want players to have the freedom to choose the race they want to play because they're excited about it, and avoid situations where players feel forced to play a specific race because of gameplay benefits.

• Races are not gender or class locked.
• Race likely won't affect the artisan system.
• Race does not affect a character's base stats.
  • Previously it was stated that race "seeds" a player's base stats.

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• Some classes may work better with certain races but nothing is enforced.
• A player's choice of race will influence their racial augments.

Stat growth

• Stats can be improved based on gear, tattoos, and other enhancements, such as socketed items.
• Players will have significant agency over the allocation of their stat progression.
• Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a players overall power in the game.
• Artisan profession does not affect a player's stats.
• Previously it was stated that race "seeds" a player's base stats, then the primary archetype grows the base stats. Any contribution by the secondary archetype was later removed.

Racial augments

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Racial augments are based on a character's race and are available to each class.

• These apply to abilities on a character's primary archetype.
• They affect how the ability works and can also apply cosmetic effects.

Racial weapons and armor

Armor racial appearances in early Alpha-1.

Violet light and myself are wearing exactly the same armor set right: Same stats, same everything, but it drops for her it looks one way, it drops for me it looks another way; and... a small part of that is gender, but then the other part of it is race. So because I was a Vaelune in that playthrough my armor was in the Vaelune style; and when she picked it up it was in the elven style because she was an elf. So that gives you an example of sort of the breadth of looks that we're going for and how we try to capture like who you are as as a character and allow you to build your look that way. – Jeffrey Bard

Dünir and Empyrean racially styled armor concept art by Keith Kovach.

We have essentially sets that exist across all races; and each race that dons those armor sets is going to have their own racial influence on the presentation of those particular sets. So that's something that's unique in how each of the races get diversified. – Steven Sharif

Weapons and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.

The customization of equipment per race is really focused on Armor sets not Weapon props. Weapon props will, from a model standpoint, will translate pretty one-to-one across the races. – Steven Sharif

• Racial appearance of gear is focused on Armor. Weapons will not change in appearance but will scale in size based on race.

Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks. – Steven Sharif

• Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.

When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race. – Steven Sharif

Q: Since a single armor set will look different on each race, how will we have large varieties of in-game achievable gear for each race if we have to make nine different looks for each set?

A: The approach for that is to create a modular piece set for armor creation; and the way we achieve that is by two steps: So, on the modeling side, each race has these geo sets basically where you're creating pieces of the armor for heavy plate armor, for medium, for robes; and you get to grab those modular pieces and mix and match as design makes a request for a particular set to the art teams. So, design comes along and they say, "hey we have a theme for a set that we want to create", so let's use Carphin in that example; and that theme from design's standpoint is going to include color, it's going to include materials, it's going to have an etymology for the set to give a background so that they can incorporate certain types of attachments- whatever they want to include on the art side. Then, the character team says, "okay let's take our base sets of geo and let's mix and match those pieces to create the Carphin set and then we're going to do a materials pass on it, and then we're going to do a color pass on it"; and that way we have a lot of essentially pieces of the puzzle to create these many different unique sets. Now we can also deform pieces across from race to race. So, even if we create unique geo on a per-race basis, we can grab the pauldron from the Human set and put it onto the Vek representation; and the end game there is that we have a particular set, for example Carphin, and that Carphin is communicating the theme; and when you don the armor for the Carphin set- you've acquired the Carphin set and you put it on- it is going to look Vek if you're a Vek. It is going to look Kaelar if you're a Kaelar, but it is still going to have the identity and the theme of the Carphin set. – Steven Sharif

Racial influence on nodes

A Node's architecture is determined by the primary race that contributes to its development.

Starting areas

Alpha-1 early preview starting area.

There is no railroaded driven theme park experience here. You will have the opportunity to create your own destiny in that regard, which means you don't have to necessarily follow the quest line nor do you have to participate in events or experiences around the starting area. Now it may be more beneficial to do that; and in that regard I guess there could be a meta around doing that, but you could branch out proceed to other areas and do different content. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-0 Empyrean starting area concept art.

Starting areas (starting zones) are located in the ruined cities of the four ancient races of Verra.

• Starting areas are located near one of the four divine gateways where players spawn into the world.
  • The Tulnar have a starting area without a divine gateway. They have the same option of starting at any of the divine gateways as other races.
  • Starting areas have some distance between them.

• Starting areas are not part of the node system.

• Each race has its own starting area.
  • Players may choose their starting gateway regardless of their choice of race.
  • Points of interest exist that represent Tulnar NPC structures in a similar fashion to the starting areas around divine gateways.

• Starting areas include expeditionary NPC settlements that serve as initial quest origination points. Lore-wise, these settlements represent scouts that were sent ahead of the main expedition back to Verra.
  • These settlements are designed to acclimatize new players entering the world.
  • While it may be advantageous to do so, there is no requirement for players to play through any specific starter zone content.

A problem that a lot of MMOs have is that those starting areas become just vacant of players and it's so sad because the greatest aspect of an MMO is that community that you get to experience, so one of the great things about the node system is that it really works from new player acquisition standpoint, where these nodes tend to develop larger near the starting location areas around the world; and it brings these players back to those locations if they're citizens and want services within those cities. So, as new players enter the world they're going to actually be surrounded most likely by more population because people are coming back to those larger nodes. – Steven Sharif

Tul'nar starting area

Points of interest will exist that represent Tulnar npc structures. In the similar fashion that the starting areas around divine gateways will include expeditionary npc settlements not tied to the node structures but serve as initial quest origination points. – Steven Sharif

Tulnar have a starting area that does not involve a divine gateway.

• Points of interest exist that represent Tulnar NPC structures in a similar fashion to the starting areas around divine gateways.

• Tulnar have the same option of starting at any of the divine gateways as other races.

Tulnar have the same option of starting at any of the divine gateways. Their civilization, though within the underrealm, has also begun to explore the surface. – Steven Sharif

Unlike the other races, the Tulnar won’t be returning to Verra. Instead they will be returning to the surface from the Underrealm for the first time in generations.

• The Underrealm itself does not have a divine gateway.

Alpha 0

Alpha-0 civilian clothing by Keith Kovach.

Alpha-0 civilian clothing by Keith Kovach.

There was no active character creation screen in Alpha-0, but there were several options for players to choose from.

• Four playable archetypes: Cleric, Mage, Ranger, Tank.
  • The other four archetypes are planned for Alpha-1.
• Two playable races: Kaelar, Empyrean.
• Gender selection.

Alpha-0 starting area

In Alpha-0, players started at an Empyrean divine gateway.

Racial mounts

Characters are able to obtain racial mounts via a quest in that race's starting area.

Each starting area will have a different quest line that will yield a different type of starting mount. But by default you don't just choose human and here you get a horse, so to speak. Because you can be a human in our game and choose to start in a different racial area- at a different Divine Gateway- and as such then you could follow the quest line that gives you the Orc mount. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Classes
• Religions
• Combat
• Alpha-0